Ratatoing

Marcel Toing knows where to steal the freshest ingredients.

An animated movie from Video Brinquedo.

Marcel Toing is a talking rat living in a world of talking rats. He owns the famous restaurant, Ratatoing. After spending time talking about the food, he, his assistant Carol and his pal Greg get the food from other places. Meanwhile, a group of evil rats plan to find out the secret of Marcel's recipes.

Review by Film Brain here, and by Reaction and Review here.

Contrast Ratatouille, since it's a complete and utter knockoff.

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Tropes used in Ratatoing include:

• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Most of the female rats wear necklaces.
• Ambiguous Disorder: Speaking to customers makes Marcel incredibly uncomfortable, to the point where his friends feign a kitchen accident to give him an excuse to escape.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Of the Sally Acorn-esque "boobs without nipples" variety.
• Card-Carrying Villain: One of the villains actually says "We're so bad!".
• Catch Phrase: Greg's "Precisely!".
• The Chick: Carol
• City with No Name: The city has the Christ the Redeemer statue in it, but the architecture would suggest either Rome or Paris. While explicitly Rio de Janeiro, it is referred to only as "the marvellous city" and "this city" in the English dub; the narrator's avoidance of giving a real name is hilarious at best.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Much of the dialogue in Ratatoing consists of characters repeating what someone just said, pointing out something which is obvious from the visuals, or repeating what someone just said.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Is someone trying to sabotage your restaurant? Send them to an "out of town laboratory"!
• Double Entendre: Lots of innuendos... and really, really bad ones at that:

Carol: "Hey, my handsome friend! Are you ready for more food adventures tonight?" Marcel: "I'm always ready, because I know how to keep my equipment prepared!"

• Easily Forgiven: Marcel has two of his competitors sent to an "out of town laboratory". Their spouses aren't exactly thrilled with this, but continue to come and eat at his restaurant anyway.
• Eek, a Rat!: Part of the villains' plan has them scaring the patrons of the human restaurant so they increase "security", thus making it harder for Marcel to get ingredients.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: From Greg saying his Catch Phrase, no less. He even says it again while they're laughing!
• Failed a Spot Check: Greg fails to notice one of the evil rats using the secret tunnel... while he's directly in front of him.
  • Marcel fails to see that he's being followed by the cat until it's literally right on top of him.

Marcel: "Just look at all that delicious cheese just waiting to be taken!" Carol: "Oh really? But what about the cat?" Marcel: "There's no sign of him, I checked everywhere!" Greg: "Look behind you, Marcel!" (cut to cat standing directly behind Marcel)

• Gonk: The cat.
• Heel Face Turn: The cat, after having been fed by Marcel. It cooperates with him to take out the evil rats, and becomes a recurring customer in his restaurant afterwards.
• Idiot Ball: Everyone at one point or another. Ironically, Greg comes off as the smartest when he's supposed to be the idiot.
  • Despite seeing how Greg turned on the ceiling fan, Carol still takes a minute-and-a-half to turn it off again, while being given very simple instructions by the token idiot.
    • Likewise, Greg decides to grab hold of Marcel's legs instead of turning off the fan, despite knowing how to operate it.
• Impossibly Delicious Food: Reiterated over and over and over again. It's not so much that the food or Marcel's cooking is special — it's that the customers have only ever eaten things that came out of the trash.
• Informed Ability: The first five minutes of Ratatoing are nothing but people repeating how good Marcel Toing's food is. The sight of the actual food itself would suggest otherwise.
  • Perishable food that is just left lying on the table all night... and he makes it last all week without refrigeration. Still wondering why the cook pot he constantly stirs is filled with brown sludge?
    • It gets even worse when we learn Marcel doesn't even make the food, he just steals it from humans.
• Inherently Funny Words: TOING.
  • "Precisely!"
• Irony: Greg's supposed to be the idiot, but he ends up coming across as the smartest mouse in the movie.
• Karma Houdini: Marcel. No one has a problem with him having his competitors taken to be used as test rats in a laboratory (although one of the patrons tells us they're being treated very well there).
• Lock and Load Montage: Which gets used three times in the film - and has a rat pulling two chunks of cheese out of his crotch.
• Lost in Translation:
  • The Brazilian original was obviously supposed to take place in Rio de Janeiro. The English narrator refers to it only as "the marvellous city, land of sun and heat". This leads to a restaurant patron casually saying she'd come from "a great distance" (instead of, say, "all the way from Brasilia") to sample the delicious food.
  • In spite of the film itself seemingly going out of its way to avoid mentioning Rio de Janeiro, its English trailer does.
• Lull Destruction: Watch the preparation scene and the dancing scene in their original Brazilian language, and then take a gander at the English version.
• The Mockbuster: Ratatouille with a bit of Flushed Away to boot.
• No Name Given: One of the evil rats is literally called "Brown Haired Rat" in the credits.
• Palette Swap: Most of the rats are recolors of the same two models with hair pieces added.
• Pink Means Feminine: The main female character has pink fur.
• Series Continuity Error: Carol states that they've "never had any chocolate before" in their restaurant, but, in an earlier scene, they offered a guest chocolate ice cream.
• Shout-Out:
  • During the food raids, Greg wears a black beanie hat, which gives him the appearance of having Mickey Mouse ears.
  • One of the paintings inside Ratatoing is a mouse version of the Mona Lisa.
• Stock Footage: The scene with the trio prepping to raid the human kitchen is reused in its entirety later in the movie.
• Stupid Statement Dance Mix: U. N. Owen Was... A Mouse!
• Thriving Ghost Town: The narrator describes Rio as, among other things, full of people... while showing an empty street.
• Villain Protagonist: Marcel is a liar, a thief and sends anyone who knows his secret off to a lab where they'll be experimented on by scientists... and he's the main character.
• You Dirty Rat: Subverted - rats are both heroes and villains.